Seeking & Finding & Keeping

“…so we seek God and find God and then live in a constant battle to keep God…”

My friend wrote those comments in the middle of a blog post about 8 months ago… I happened to come across the post again recently, and these words have been haunting me ever since!

I love the whole searching nature of my faith… yes, it makes it harder sometimes than just being able to easily accept anything I am told, but it also makes it more real and more personal (and means I think about things for myself so do not end up joining a cult or something!).

Several authors I respect talk of this questioning nature. Don Miller for one. How about the entire book ‘Searching For God Knows What’? Rob Bell… ‘Velvet Elvis’… Rob Brendle ‘In The Meantime’… to name a few.

Questioning leads to reinterpretation. It allows us to grapple and wrestle with our faith, to really understand things better. After all, Jacob ‘wrestled with a man’ and came away limping… I love the symbolism in that, that wrestling/talking/meeting with God (or an angel) leaves scars, leaves us marked for life. Picture this… Jacob meets some friends a few days after this encounter with “the man”, and he’s limping… and they’re all thinking, “what kind of trouble have you got yourself into now Jacob?” How would they respond when they find out, actually, I was wrestling with God??

What marks do I have from the times I’ve wrestled with God? Do I have enough? Do they show? Are they supposed to show? Are you supposed to know that I’ve been with “the man”?